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This essay deals with three quasi-mythological figures which illuminate some of the complexities in loving. They are the figures of Narcissus, Pygmalion, and Hermaphroditus.
All three derive from Ovid,1 whose life was contemporaneous with the birth of the Christian era. Ovid's place in the history of love is assured on the basis of two of his books: The Loves (Amores), and The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria).
The three mythic figures are not logical concepts. Hence, Narcissus is not interchangeable with self-love. For Narcissus embodies a particular extreme form of self-love which results in death. Even when Freud abstracted terms from myths as he did when he coined the term Oedipus Complex out of the myth of Oedipus and narcissism out of the mythical elements of Narcissus, these concepts retained residues of the mythic. Thus, Kernberg can say that narcissists do not really love themselves.
According to Ovid, Narcissus was a youth of wondrous beauty. His mother, the nymph Leirope, was ravished by the river god Kephissos who encircled her with his winding streams. Leirope consulted the prophet Tireseas whether Narcissus would reach old age. The seer answered “only if he never knows himself.” Edwards (1977) pointed out that the significance of the seer's answer (si se non noverit) was Ovid's ironical reversal of the classic Greek ideal: “Know thyself” inscribed on the temple in Delphi.
The beautiful youth has many suitors, men, women,